GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of World Plays After 1925

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

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All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

1 Diagnostic Test 158 Practice Tests Question of the Day Flashcards Learn by Concept

Example Questions

Example Question #756 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English

Who of the following is not a Caribbean playwright?

Possible Answers:

Wole Solinka

Aimé Césaire

Earl Lovelace

Derek Walcott

Kamau Brathwaite

Correct answer:

Wole Solinka

Explanation:

Wole Solinka is a dramatist, but he is from Nigeria, not the Caribbean. He is the first African recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his plays, which feature colonialism and African politics, include Death and the King’s Horsemen, Kongi’s Harvest, and A Dance of the Forests.

Example Question #757 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English

Who of the following is not an African dramatist?

Possible Answers:

Jean Rhys

Wole Soyinka

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Ama Ata Aidoo

Ola Rotimi

Correct answer:

Jean Rhys

Explanation:

While Jean Rhys is a renowned writer, she is Dominican and not African. Moreover, she was known for writing novels (including Wide Sargasso Sea and After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie) and not plays.

Example Question #758 : Gre Subject Test: Literature In English

Which of these European playwrights was a staunch Marxist?

Possible Answers:

Friedrich Schiller

Eugene Ionesco

Jean Genet

Henrik Ibsen

Bertolt Brecht

Correct answer:

Bertolt Brecht

Explanation:

This dramatist is Brecht, and his lifelong Marxist leanings were often visible in his aesthetics. His works include plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children, The Threepenny Opera, and Man Equals Man. He and his wife also co-founded and operated the Berliner Ensemble, an important post-war German theater company.

Example Question #521 : Cultural And Historical Contexts

Which of the following playwrights did not write work belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd?

Possible Answers:

Eugene Ionesco

Jean Genet

Fernando Arrabal

Samuel Beckett

Tennessee Williams

Correct answer:

Tennessee Williams

Explanation:

Only Tennessee Williams did not write absurdist plays emphasizing the meaninglessness of human existence. (The Theatre of the Absurd was a primarily European phenomenon, and Williams was American.)

Example Question #2 : Contexts Of World Plays After 1925

What is the subject of the play A Doll’s House?

Possible Answers:

shifting political regimes in Norway

the miniaturization of urban life

wartime attitudes toward pacifists in Germany

nineteenth-century marital norms

social conventions surrounding treatment of the disabled

Correct answer:

nineteenth-century marital norms

Explanation:

Written by Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House concerns what the playwright considered to be the constricting aspects of marriage, motherhood, female domesticity, and public reputation versus private morality. The work is a tragedy and takes place in Ibsen’s native Norway in the late nineteenth century.

All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

1 Diagnostic Test 158 Practice Tests Question of the Day Flashcards Learn by Concept
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